


Once in a Red Moon

by o2doko



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-24
Updated: 2011-06-24
Packaged: 2017-10-20 16:37:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/o2doko/pseuds/o2doko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After trading his cell in Azkaban for a virtual imprisonment in Grimmauld Place, Sirius begins to lose his mind to the solitude and the silence and the ravages  of old, painful memories.  It will take a rather unexpected ally to pull him back from the brink and remind him what he has left to live for.  [Commisioned fic for queeofspades @ LiveJournal in return for her help_japan donation.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once in a Red Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [queeofspades @ LiveJournal](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=queeofspades+%40+LiveJournal).



> This story was written for queeofspades @ LJ in return for her very generous donation during the help_japan auctions last spring. Her prompt requirements included an alcoholic Sirius helped out of his addiction by Severus. I couldn't quite work in the bonus slash, but hopefully she enjoys it anyway!
> 
> HUGE thanks to my beta, Meg, for her keen eye and helpful suggestions regarding the ending.

Later, he’d probably blame it on the scotch; but the truth was that storms had a way of stirring something inside him, churning the silt of forgotten emotions to the surface once more.  The grit of it lined the underside of his bones, breathing _restless_ into the loops and cords of his taunt muscles, and now … here he was.

The abrupt change in weather had swept away the late fall sunlight, shrouding the house in a fitting haze.  Thick spatters of rain veiled the windows, their shadows dripping down the faded walls to pool indiscriminately on the threadbare rug.  The gloom didn’t deter him, though; Sirius didn’t even bother with the lights.  The dusty glimmer of his uncertain memories was illumination enough.

It was all here: his books, his clothes, even the sun-faded Slytherin pendant tacked above the bed.  The room stood frozen in one captured, crystallized moment, like a shrine to a soul long-departed; a mother’s heart-broken homage to her favorite son.  Sirius settled himself on the edge of the duvet, the motion casting a faint cloud of dust into the air around him.  He crinkled his nose against the dry smell of decay.  Here, then, was yet another room Kreacher hadn’t saved from the slow crawl of time.

Sirius gingerly set his half-empty glass on the bedside table, exchanging it for a picture frame that felt gritty and fragile beneath his hand.  Streaking his fingers through the layer of dust filming the glass, he stared at the laughing face captured within the photograph and tried to remember the last time he’d spoken to his brother.

Just another casualty of a horrific war; just another face no one bothered to remember.

He traded the picture for the scotch again, settling against the brittle pillows and relishing the slow burn of alcohol against the back of his throat.  A sharp flash of lightning momentarily illuminated the room, glinting dully off of the trophies lined up along the wall: Quidditch cups, dueling awards, any number of honors that had meant so much then and meant absolutely nothing now.  Sirius waited for the peal of thunder to snarl overhead, loud enough to rattle the windows, before releasing a long breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

Maybe, he reasoned wearily, if he was very lucky and remained very still, he’d become just another artifact in the exhibit.

============================

“This is a _disaster_.  If Voldemort manages to gain their trust, he’ll have access to every spy network and black-market information ring in the entire wizarding world!”  Mad-Eye slammed his fist against the tabletop for emphasis, clearly disgusted at the mere prospect.

“That’s a bit of an exaggeration, Alastor,” Arthur interjected, sounding tired.  It was an argument they’d already had many times before, and one he clearly wasn’t willing to have again.

“Arthur’s right; ‘the underground’ doesn’t refer to a single, unified group,” Tonks agreed, restlessly coming her fingers back through her hair – long and a deep blue-black tonight.  “Most outsiders will prefer to stay on the outskirts, remain uninvolved.  Just like last time.”

Sirius sighed impatiently, tilting his chair back on its hind legs and staring up into the shadows of the ceiling.  The Order had been debating this topic all week, and not even Remus’ disapproving looks could force Sirius to listen to it all again.  Not willingly, at least.  He absently sipped at the contents of his glass, the half-melted ice cubes chinking softly against one another as he focused instead on the sound of the rain drumming on the roof.

“ _Hierarchies!_ ” Alastor growled, pounding the table hard enough to rattle the cutlery.  “Even the underworld has its leaders, and where they go, the others will follow.  You lot are parents!  Educators!  How are you not understanding this?”

“Well,” a silky voice interjected suddenly, cool and disdainful and unpleasantly familiar.  “You could spend the evening arguing about it – _again_.  Or you could listen to my proposition.”  The newcomer had taken up residence in the entrance way, dressed in a robe dark enough to blend with the shadows, and no one could say for sure when he’d first arrived.

Sirius’ front chair legs hit the floor with an audible crack, his attention suddenly arrested again.  “No one cares what you have to say, Snivellus,” he shot back, arms folded across his chest.  Snape spared him an idle glance – noting his disheveled hair, his two-day growth of beard, the trails of dust on his faded jacket – before turning away without comment, clearly dismissing Sirius out of hand.

“Actually, Sirius,” Remus cut in carefully, placing a lightly restraining hand on his friend’s shoulder, “I think we would all benefit from what Severus has to say.”

The assembled group glanced between the two instructors in surprise, clearly bemused by the unexpected alliance, and Snape used the pause to move from the doorway into the room.  His robes hung heavy against his lean body, soaked from the storm, and the early autumn chill had frosted his already pale skin.  But aside from brushing a lock of damp hair behind one ear, he seemed entirely oblivious to his condition.  No one even thought to offer him a seat near the fire; no one bothered to offer him a seat at all.  “If you’re so concerned about the Dark Lord’s recruitment efforts,” he began flatly, “why not send someone in to recruit them first?  A counter-agent, if you will.”

“Who?” Arthur challenged warily.  “It can’t be you; Voldemort would notice if you started openly working for the Order.  Mad-Eye and Tonks are well-known aurors, so they’re out, Dumbledore is entirely too conspicuous, I work for the Ministry, and Remus is –”

“—a werewolf,” Lupin finished quietly.  “My lycanthropy, as well as my sudden and potentially controversial departure from Hogwarts, provide me with the perfect opening.  As Severus and I discussed yesterday.”

“Wait; you two are in on this together?”  Sirius gave his friend and incredulous look, shrugging out from under Remus’ hand.

“It was my idea,” Snape said coolly.  “I have the information we need, but, as has already been pointed out, my comings and goings are too closely monitored as it is.  Lupin’s the logical choice.”  He picked a stray bit of lint from the sleeve of his robe, apparently bored already with the entire conversation.

“If the wrong people find out who he is and what he’s really doing, they’ll rip him limb from limb.  It’s entirely too dangerous for him to do this alone!” Sirius protested.

“It’s a double-blind, Black.”  Snape sounded irritated that he had to explain himself at all.  He glanced up at the other wizard from half-lowered lashes, his expression disdainful.  “The Dark Lord has already assigned me to speak to the same people.  Lupin will pretend to be an agent of the Dark Lord along with myself.”

“ _You’re_ going to be his back-up?” Sirius exploded, and now it was his turn to pound on the table.  “No.  Absolutely not.  You’re just looking for any excuse you can find to get behind him when his back is turned and –”

“Sirius, that’s enough,” Remus cut in.  “Snape is a member of this Order, as you know well enough, and he’s just as committed to the success of this endeavor as the rest of us.  Besides, we’ve been discussing this issue for days now; this is the only way to solve the problem.”

“Yes, fine; go and talk to them.  But not with _him_!”

“Then with whom?” Snape asked impatiently.  “ _You?_  You can’t even leave the house, Black.  As Weasley already demonstrated, there _is_ no one else.”

“He has a point,” Alastor mused.  “I want more details on this before we commit to anything.  But Severus and Remus are the only ones who could conceivably carry this out.  Severus, fill us in on the rest of it.”

Sirius crossed his arms and scowled, slumping lower in his seat.  He tried to focus on Snape’s voice – it was hard to protest if you didn’t know what you were arguing against – but his anger and the alcohol in his bloodstream made it difficult to concentrate.  He found himself staring instead at the patched left elbow of Remus’ sweater, silently counting all the spaces where the fabric had torn or unraveled over the years.  How long had he owned the thing?  It had been washed so many times that it had entirely lost its shape; Sirius couldn’t even say with any degree of certainty what color the material had once been.  Keep anything long enough, he knew, and it would eventually fade to grey.

 _It’s Snivellus’ fault that he lost his job,_ Sirius thought darkly, unconsciously digging his ragged fingernails into the fabric of his own sleeve.   _Were he working, he might be able to afford something decent to wear._  But even that thought rapidly lost consistency in his mind.  He remembered – furtively, almost guiltily – that he knew what the curve of Remus’ elbow tasted like beneath the inadequate material, and suddenly the roaring fire at his back was entirely too warm in spite of the room’s damp chill.  His eyes skittered restlessly away from his friend’s arm, catching on the deep red glimmer of the wine dregs in Molly’s glass.   _And I know what his blood looks like, too,_ he thought dully, staring at the crimson smear.   _Underneath his sleeve, underneath his skin; I know what another werewolf’s teeth can do when he lifts an arm to defend his face, because he was left defenseless by the people who were supposed to look after him._  The murmured conversation around him echoed in his mind the frantic whisper of barely-remembered healing spells – _why didn’t I pay more attention in Charms, why are you hurt when you’re the only one who knows how to fix this_ – and it was too easy to remember how vivid that blood had looked streaked against the dirty floor of their kitchen.

He wondered dully if Remus’ elbow bore some sort of scar; just one among many, all the painful, twisted reminders of all the times the people who should have protected him had let him down.

But he didn’t know the answer to that question.  After that night, he had never seen his friend’s bare arm again.  After that night …

Sirius ruthlessly cut off the thought before he could finish it, downing the remaining contents of his glass with one throw and pushing himself to his feet.  Ignoring their questioning looks, he stalked soundlessly from the room.

The thunder still growled overhead, like a restless jungle cat seeking entrance to the tightly-warded house, and Sirius spent the remainder of the meeting at the window, watching it slash up the night with its neon claws.

=======================

He awoke the next day to a different world altogether: one with sunlight honed razor-sharp on the shrill cry of birdsong, sunlight which stabbed mercilessly through the blood-shot membrane of his eyes and lodged as a painful throb behind them.

Groaning, Sirius yanked his blankets over his head, but even that only succeeded in rousing him further from his stupor.  He had absolutely no recollection of putting himself to bed.  Groggily, he trailed a clammy hand down his body, searching out the familiar feel of the old t-shirt he regularly wore at night, but it wasn’t there.  Nor were most of the clothes he had been wearing yesterday.  Just skin and scars, socks and the boxers he’d put on the previous morning.

Well, that ruled out one possibility, at least.  But someone else had decidedly hauled him up here.  Scratching at the stubble lining his jaw, he yawned weakly and supposed he should feel embarrassed about the entire thing.  In the end, though, it didn’t seem worth the effort.

He remained where he was for some time after that, but his stomach had begun to roll in accompaniment to the pounding in his head, keeping sleep just out of arm’s reach.  Swallowing against the cottony feeling sitting heavy on his tongue, he eventually risked a quick peek above the covers and tried to gauge how far along he was in the day by the position of the tree shadows darkening the floor.  Noon, at least; possibly later.  But then, what pressing need was there to get up at all?

In the end it was a desire for water, not any concern over the time, which finally made him brave the world beyond the edge of his mattress.  For as bright as the sunlight was, the air in the house was surprisingly cold.  Sirius pulled an old sweatshirt over his head in grudging concession, though he didn’t bother dressing further before he trudged his way out into the hall and down the stairs.  The big house stood as it always did: silent and empty.  He’d covered the portraits in the hallway with a series of old curtains when he’d first arrived, and he was careful not to brush against the fabric and disturb his bitter relatives as he shuffled past.

But, to his surprise, he wasn’t alone in the house after all.  Remus sat at the kitchen table, quietly reading a book in the weak light filtering through the grimy windows.  He glanced up when Sirius entered, but only long enough for Sirius to notice that the shadows under his eyes had become virtual bruises; then he gestured with a distracted air towards the ancient cast-iron stove, already engrossed in his book again.  “Kettle’s on,” he murmured, but that was all he said.

Sirius looked at the kettle a moment in contemplation, watching the thin wisp of steam writhe against the colder air of the room.  But ultimately he ignored it in favor of a glass of water from the leaky tap.  Finally settling at the table across from his friend, he waited while the room descended once more into its customary shroud of gloomy silence.

After finishing the water, Sirius flicked at a smudge of ash settled against the rim of his cup, the glass chiming faintly against his fingernail.  He squinted and tilted his head to one side, trying to make out the title of Remus’ book, but the lettering on the spine was faded and he suspected it was in a language he couldn’t read, anyway.  He shifted his weight from one hip to the other, then back again.  He tried to remember a charm to cure headaches, but couldn’t manage to concentrate long enough to find one.  He looked for the threads of steam in the air above Remus’ tea cup, but couldn’t find any of those, either, and concluded that the drink must have grown cold.

Finally, unable to take the quiet any longer, Sirius cleared his scratchy throat.  “Suppose you were the one who put me to bed, then.  Thanks.”

Remus carefully dog-eared the page he was reading before closing the book and pushing it aside.  “Can’t remember a thing about the evening, can you?” he asked levelly, fixing his friend with his inscrutable gaze.  No matter how the years ravaged him, Sirius mused, those eyes would never change; forever the deep green and grey and gold of the forest, and forever ageless.

“Just the storm, and an empty bottle of scotch, and some brief fever-dream in which you hatched an idiotic plan with Snape to get yourself killed in the field.”  He listed each item in the same bland, disinterested tone, ticking the memories off one by one against his skeletal fingers.  “… After that, though, it’s all kind of a blur.”  He attempted a smile, though he suspected it had lost most of its roguish charm somewhere along the years.

“Hmm.”  Pushing the book out of the way, Lupin stretched out one arm along the table and rested his head against it, exactly as he had when they were children.  Sirius thought of libraries and after-class detentions and the last time he’d watched Remus looking up at him like this, idle and young.  It was suddenly difficult to breathe and he looked away, wondering if there was any beer left in the refrigerator.

“So what you’re telling me is that you _don’t_ remember the singing, or the table-top strip tease, or the rather sloppy way you pinned Severus against the wall and forced him to kiss you before you’d let him escape out the door?”

Well, _that_ was enough to secure his attention once more.  “Lies!” Sirius declared hopefully, throwing Remus a scandalized look.  “Had there been a strip-tease involved, I would most certainly have _not_ woken up alone.”  He waggled his eyebrows suggestively, earning a snort of amusement from his companion.

“Well, Molly was quite taken with your performance, naturally; but Arthur managed to hustle her out of the house before anything could come of it,” Remus grinned.  “Needless to add, you were heartbroken by her abandonment and thus sought comfort in Severus’ stiff, resisting arms.”

“’Resisting’?” Sirius scoffed.  “Nonsense!  Remus J. Lupin, you are a dirty liar.  No one alive can resist the allure of my provocative dancing, as you know well enough.”

He’d meant it as a joke, but Remus’ smile dimmed somewhat and he looked away, dispelling the moment.  Sirius cringed inwardly and wondered why he never seemed able to keep from putting his foot in his own mouth.  Twelve years of imprisonment had certainly done nothing for his social skills.  “Um.  So how bad was it really?” he asked quietly.  “Anyone in particular I need to apologize to?”  He stood up before Remus could answer, rummaging around in the ‘fridge so that he wouldn’t have to deal with the full weight of the werewolf’s eyes.  The clanking household appliance was ancient, held together now by magic and sheer force of will, and persisted in being a dull off-white color no matter how many times Molly scrubbed it.  Sirius managed to find two bottles of beer in the back, and gratefully retrieved the one closest to the door.

Remus was silent for a long moment, tracing an old gauge in the table’s surface against the curve of his fingernail.  “No,” he said finally.  “You polished off the scotch by yourself upstairs and never bothered anyone.  I didn’t even realize you were that far gone until I came up to talk to you after the others left.”  His head was still resting against his arm, but it didn’t make him look young any longer; just tired.

“About this Snape bullshit?” Sirius guessed, popping the cap off the bottle with a practiced gesture and quickly downing half of its contents.  He was aware of Remus watching him, but by the time Sirius had lowered the bottle the werewolf was staring off into the shadows again.

“It’s not a bad plan, Padfoot.  You might even agree, had you stayed to hear him out.”

Sirius snorted as he resumed his seat, clearly unconvinced.  “I already _know_ the plan; I’ve heard it before.  And it was a bad idea that time, too.”

“This isn’t like last time.”  His voice was soft, almost distracted, as he continued to push his nail into the warped indentation.  They were both wandering into dangerous territory now, a thin sheet of black ice neither had any desire to walk again.  Sirius realized his hand had begun to shake slightly beneath the table, and he took another long pull on his beer to fortify himself.

“You’re right.  This time you _know_ you can’t trust your back-up, rather than … only suspecting that you can’t.”

Remus was silent for a long moment.  Then he sighed, sitting up and scrubbing the heel of his hand over his eyes.  “I trust Severus, Padfoot.  I don’t like him, and Merlin knows he can barely stand to be in the same room with me.  We’re never going to be friends.  But he has his reasons for hating Voldemort, same as the rest of us.  He’s loyal to Dumbledore; he’s risked his life numerous times to protect Harry.  I trust him.  As should you.”  Sirius stared into his beer for a while, tilting his wrist to make the amber liquid slosh against the sides of the bottle.  Remus watched him before finally reaching out, laying his thin fingers over Sirius’ hand to still the motion.  “He loved Lily, Sirius.  He still does.  I believe in the potency of love to make good men from bad, if nothing else.”

“Even though it wasn’t enough to –” Sirius began fiercely, but he couldn’t finish the thought; it was too hard, even now.  Remus withdrew his hand and stared at the cover of his neglected book.  Then he pushed back his chair and got to his feet.

“I should go,” he murmured, his voice strangely vacant.  “I’ll be by to check on you in a few days.  If you need anything from the store, you can let me know then.  Members of the Order will be around, on and off, but the next meeting isn’t until next week.”

“Moony …”

Remus waited, but when it was obvious that Sirius couldn’t think of anything to say he just smiled thinly.  “Take care of yourself until then, Pads.  Try to find another way to pass the time besides drinking, maybe?”

Sirius waited until he heard the front door close behind the werewolf, and then – partly out of spite – he went back to the refrigerator and retrieved the second bottle of beer.

==============================

The rest of the week passed in a strange sort of blur.  Members of the Order did indeed come and go, delivering messages or receiving them, but Sirius preferred to remain out of sight, haunting the second floor like a drunken and disconsolate ghost.  He occasionally had dealings with McDungus, who kept him in alcohol for the price of his mother’s pilfered jewelry, but that was the extent of his social interactions.  By now even Kreacher recognized that it was pointless to argue with  him; the ancient house elf merely brought his reluctant master food when threatened to (which, admittedly, wasn’t very often) and kept the majority of his ‘blood-traitor’ tirades to himself.

Remus didn’t come by again until an hour before the Order meeting at the end of the week, and during their conversation he was distant and distracted.  He told Sirius that he had been finalizing the details of his mission with Snape throughout the past couple of days, and that they would be departing that evening once the meeting was concluded.

“Awfully close to the full moon, isn’t it?” Sirius asked worriedly, giving his friend a careful once-over.  He’d long ago learned to read the phases of the moon in Remus’ face more accurately than anyone else could on a calendar, and today the werewolf looked like hell.

Remus just shrugged wearily in response.  “It’s the best time for this,” he said absently, watching through the window as the Weasleys cautiously approached the front door of the house.  “The other werewolves will be sympathetic towards one of their own.”

“And at their most hostile towards their enemies,” Sirius pressed, but Remus didn’t bother responding to that.

  
He’d made some attempt to sober up before the meeting, but even so Sirius would have been hard pressed to say what transpired during it.  He spent the time in sullen disapproval, sitting close to Remus and glaring fiercely at Snape at every available opportunity.  But in the end, he was powerless to stop what was going to transpire afterward, and he knew it.

“Just be careful, alright?” he said in an undertone to Remus before the werewolf could depart, catching his wrist to pull him back.  “And if Snape tries anything funny, hex him into next week.”

“We’ll be fine, Sirius,” Remus sighed, rolling his eyes and gently pulling free.  “See you on the other side.”

“If he hurts you, I’ll kill him,” Sirius growled, but it was too late; there was no one left in the house to hear, and the threat rang hollow and empty against the bare walls.

  
=========================

A week and a half went by, and nothing; no news.  No contact.

The world outside sank into the moody, grey gloom of approaching winter.  The trees shed their leaves like flecks of dried blood against the bone-pale ridges of the sidewalk, until even those scrapes of decaying color shriveled up and blew away.  And Sirius stood before the solitary window in the room that had once been his, day after day, watching the world fade and waiting.  His breath smoked against the chilled glass, and while the sunlight whithered he would draw meandering, meaningless shapes in the fog until even that last scrap of warmth bled out into the darkness.

When the ponderous clock in the front hallway tolled the two-week mark, Sirius used the twisted metal skeleton of a discarded folding chair to pry open one of the windows in the attic.  With a fifth of whiskey in his hand, he crawled out onto the decaying roof and sat alone for hours, watching the first snowfall of the year with cobwebs streaking his hair.

Three more days, and the sullen weather cleared for one night.  This time he was drinking brandy, and when the stars came out he crawled outside again to look at them.  Something about their cold silver light cut through to his bones, but he sat there anyway, shivering and drinking until the sharp light knifed through his eyes and bled tears against his sunken cheeks.  Dawn’s pale blush found him sleeping in the ancient rocking chair that had once belonged to his grandmother, forgotten and lost in the attic among so many other broken things.

Four days later, half-mad from the silence, he determined to change into his animagus form and go find somebody.   _Anybody_.

But he settled for drinking a case of beer and smashing his mother’s dressing-room mirror instead.

On the fifth day, he wrote a long letter to Harry.  In it, he talked about Harry’s family, and his, and how Harry’s family had _become_ his family.  He wrote about James and Lily’s wedding, and the summer he’d first realized he was in love with Remus.  He wrote about the day James asked Sirius to become Harry’s godfather.  He wrote about the day the marauders joined the first Order of the Phoenix; about their first assignment.  He wrote about the night he’d come face-to-face with his younger brother in the dark, and how he had tried to kill him.  He told Harry about how he’d first come to suspect that Remus was spying for Voldemort, about the fight they had had over it.  About how he’d recommended Peter as secret-keeper for the Potters instead of Remus, and how his suspicions had almost gotten Remus killed.  Then he wrote about confronting Peter; about trying to kill him, and about how James and Lily’s deaths had driven him mad with grief.  He wrote about seeing Remus and Dumbledore at his trial, and what it felt like to know that they believed he’d betrayed his best friend.

And then he wrote about Azkaban.  Twelve long years of terror and loneliness, of nightmares.  Of how he had clung to one single, solitary thought in all that time to keep him sane, and how that thought wasn’t of love or sacrifice or happiness, but rather of revenge.  And he wrote about how it had felt, seeing Harry again after all that time.  Seeing Remus.  Seeing Peter.  About how he knew he was free, and the nightmare was over, and that he knew he should feel hope and relief and happiness that the world was righting itself after so many years, but how all he felt was empty.  He wrote about being trapped inside his parents’ home, the home he’d run away from when he was a child; about the slow, aching numbness that had sunk deep into his flesh when he’d first been imprisoned, and how it was here inside this prison, too.

All day long he sat at the table, scribbling furiously as the tepid English sun arced its way overhead; sketching out every single memory, good and bad, left to him after twelve long years of torture at the hands of the dementors.  And when he’d run out of those, he talked about the things he could no longer remember at all: how Harry had looked the day he was born.  His first kiss with Remus.  The color of the flowers in Lily’s wedding bouquet.  The taste of chocolate frogs.  The sound of James’ laughter.  The scent of summer grass.

How it felt to be in love, to be happy, to feel safe.  To feel wanted.

By the time he was finished, the deep hush of night had settled around him and there were over thirty pages scattered across the table, all covered front-to-back in his tight, frantic scrawl.  Exhausted, he stretched his aching arms over his head and went to retrieve a fresh beer from the refrigerator.  He stood awhile near the door, drinking and staring down at the day’s work, and then he crossed the room and lit the fire beneath the ancient cast-iron stove.

It took another three beers before he’d finished feeding each handwritten page through the grate, one after the other, coughing against the smoke as he watched everything he’d ever felt slowly go up in flames.

On the sixth day, one day shy of three weeks later, they finally returned.

Remus and Mad-Eye shouldered their way with some difficulty through the narrow doorway, dragging an unconscious Snape between them.  The entire right side of Remus’ face was smeared with blood, an ugly gash slicing across the bridge of his nose and splitting his upper lip.  Severus’ left cheek and the side of his neck were shredded into red pulp by a series of long, jagged claw marks.  Only Alastor remained untouched, but his face was pale and he looked deadly grim.

Sirius stood on the landing of the stairs, watching silently as they struggled to carry their burden into the first floor sitting room.  When they’d vanished beyond his sight, he wordlessly made his way to the kitchen for hot water and bandages.  It was a routine the full moon had taught him well, and his fingers were able to carry out the task quickly even though his mind remained eerily blank.

By the time he entered the sitting room, Remus and Alastor had Severus spread out on the faded carpet and were struggling to peel the fragments of his black wizarding robe away from his mangled shoulder.  All the while Snape’s eyes remained closed; he looked dead already.

“Out of the way,” Mad-Eye barked at Remus, who sat back obediently on his heels while the auror fetched his wand from the inside pocket of his blood-spattered coat.  As he began muttering a series of spells to close the gaps in Snape’s shredded flesh, Sirius knelt beside Remus with his more mundane medical supplies.

“What happened?” he asked quietly, wringing out a strip of cloth and pressing it to Remus’ bloodied cheek.

“Werewolf,” Lupin responded shortly.  He allowed Sirius’ ministrations, but his eyes never left Snape.  “It’s my fault; it never occurred to me that he’d be so territorial.  I had taken the Wolfsbane potion and couldn’t transform.  The boy attacked me when my back was turned.  Severus saved my life.”  He winced reflexively as Sirius’ cloth pressed against the edge of his wound, though he said nothing in protest.

Sirius frowned slightly and wondered just how drunk he’d have to be to mishear that.  “He _saved_ your life?” he asked incredulously when no further information seemed to be forthcoming.  Remus just nodded.

“Lupin, press down here,” Alastor ordered suddenly, indicating a particularly violent slash along the side of Snape’s neck.  “No point in knitting the skin until the bleeding stops.”  Sirius shifted out of the way as Remus leaned forward, pressing his already bloody fingers down against the wound.  “Black, Snape isn’t going anywhere tonight.  Find somewhere we can lay him; someplace we can elevate his torso.”

Sirius glanced skeptically around the room, finally rising to push two armchairs together.  Noticing Kreacher watching them from the doorway, he curtly told the house elf to fetch blankets and as many pillows as he could find.  It wasn’t exactly first-class accommodations, but unless the other two were prepared to drag their patient upstairs, it was the best he could do.

“How did you find them?” he asked the auror while he waited for Kreacher to return, arms folded as he stared down at the halo of blood seeping into the carpet fibers around Snape’s head.

“Patrolling the area on unrelated business,” Alastor answered brusquely, “and lucky thing, too.”  That was apparently all he was willing to say on the matter.

The rest of his ministrations were completed in a terse hush, and when he was satisfied that he’d done everything in his power the three men lifted Snape’s thin frame from the floor and onto his makeshift bed.  “I’ve sent for Dumbledore,” Mad-Eye announced, pocketing his wand once more.  “Until he arrives, there’s nothing else to be done.  I’ve got things to be seeing to elsewhere – Lupin, you’ll need to stay here until he arrives and fill him in.”  A moment later, he’d apparated from the room and was gone.

“Ever a man of few words,” Sirius snorted.  “Sit, Moony; I can take care of your face.”  He reached for his own wand.

“Not in your present state,” Remus said irritably, pushing his hand away.  “You _reek_ of alcohol; Seriously, Sirius, do you _bathe_ in the stuff now?”  Sirius just blinked at him in surprise.  Remus shook his head, gingerly perching on the edge of the room’s only remaining chair.  “Never mind,” he sighed.  “If you really want to help, you could make some tea.”

Unsure of what to say, Sirius wordlessly complied.

“… I meant the Muggle way, but thanks.”  Remus took the offered cup, eyeing Sirius’ wand with obvious trepidation.  Sensing his unease, Sirius left the wand on the mantle above the cold fireplace before perching awkwardly on the armrest of Remus’ chair.

“What happened?” he tried again after a while, certain if he didn’t the ponderous ticking of the hallway clock would drive him mad.  “With the mission, I mean.  You were gone a long time.  I was beginning to think you’d been abducted.  Or killed.”

Remus tilted his head to one side slightly, the way always he did when he was weighing his words.  “It doesn’t matter,” he said finally.  “We failed.  The Death Eaters were there before us, which made Snape’s cover precarious at best, and we made absolutely no headway in changing their minds.  Anyway, Tonks was right; most of them want nothing to do with either side.  Those who sided with Voldemort last time lost everything after his defeat.  They’re the ‘undesirables’ of the wizarding world, after all; they were treated harshly by the Ministry.  Perhaps even unfairly.”  He paused, taking a meditative sip of his tea.  “They have no love for our side, and no desire to run a similar risk again for Voldemort’s.  They just want to be left alone.  And I can’t say that I blame them for that.”

Sirius shrugged, absently picking at a loose thread on the upholstery.  “Sounds more like a stalemate than a failure, Moony.  No one gets their support; no one benefits.”

“At this point, a stalemate _is_ a failure.  Voldemort’s supporters have infiltrated every governmental organization in the wizarding world.  We needed their support.  And if this mission cost us our only reliable source of information on the enemy’s plans …”  He turned to look at Snape again.

“Who would have thought that Snape would have stuck his neck out for you?” Sirius mused, slowly shaking his head.  He was having trouble concentrating on everything Remus said, but that one particular oddity stuck fast in his mind.  “Not kill you himself, okay; but risk his _life_ for you?”

Remus shook his head, but declined to comment.

=============================

He hadn’t meant to, but at some point in the evening he must have drifted off; when he awoke, it was morning and he was sprawled across Remus’ chair, alone.  Squinting against the painful wash of sunlight, Sirius stretched out the sharp kink in his back and groggily pushed himself up into a sitting position.  “Moony?” he called blearily, grinding the silt from his eyes.

“Gone,” a voice muttered from across the room, hoarse and raspy but still recognizably irritated.  “It’s just you and me, Black.  And if you don’t get me some water, I’m going to set this impossibly hideous chair on fire.”

“Suit yourself,” Sirius yawned, carefully turning his dizzy head in the direction of the voice.  He wasn’t entirely sure that he wasn’t still dreaming; the scene certainly felt surreal enough.  “I always hated that chair.”

Snape narrowed his eyes testily, struggling (and not entirely succeeding) to push himself higher in his pseudo-bed.  “You’re still drunk aren’t you?” he accused.  “I don’t understand how even _you_ can stand to be in the same room with yourself.”

“You’re too annoying to be a dream,” Sirius decided, sinking back against the stiff cushions.  “Where’d Moony go?”

“With Dumbledore,” Snape said shortly.  “He’s filling the headmaster in on what transpired.   _You’re_ supposed to be on nursing duty.”  His tone made it clear that he didn’t think Sirius capable of the assignment.

Sirius sighed and closed his eyes a moment, willing the room to cease spinning.  “Water,” he decided.  “I need a glass of water.”  He cracked an eye in Snape’s direction.  “And if you shut your trap for five seconds, I might actually get you one, too.”  He rose unsteadily to his feet and left the room.

 _Nursing duty_ , he though derisively to himself.   _Bastard seems absolutely fine to me._  He debated ‘forgetting’ the promised drink, just to irritate Snape, but in the end the memory of Remus’ blood-smeared face grudgingly convinced him.  If he really had saved the werewolf’s life, the least Sirius could do was give him a drink.   _But if he thinks I’m going to wait on him all day, that slimy git has another thing coming._

He returned a few moments later with a cup for each of them, handing Snape’s over with a look of obvious disgust.  “You know, Snivellus, I think you’ve been spending too much time in the classroom.  All those potion fumes seem to have messed with your head; slowed you down.  Only you would manage to get so spectacularly mauled on such a simple assignment.”

Snape glowered at him, though for the moment downing the contents of the glass was much more important than responding.  Beads of sweat glinted dully along his hairline, and there was an unusual flush to his pale, sunken cheeks.  The tail end of a rather dangerous fever was still working its way out of his system, but despite himself Sirius couldn’t work up any sympathy.

“… And only you would insist on childish squabbling after I saved your pathetic lap dog’s life,” the potions master shot back finally, wiping the corner of his mouth with the edge of his bony wrist.  Alastor had done a decent job on his face the night before; a little bruising along his cheek and jawline was all that remained of his brutal injury.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Sirius snorted, settling once more on the armrest of the room’s third chair.  “My gratefulness is tempered considerably by the knowledge that you had some terrible, ulterior motive.  I’m pretty sure the entire universe would implode if you actually did something nice for someone else.”

“Or if you ever fired up that second brain cell,” Snape muttered.  But the short conversation seemed to have sapped his strength.  Slumping back against the cushions, he turned his face towards the wall and closed his eyes.  “Now run along and indulge in your daily drinking binge.  I’m tired.”

Sirius paused to think of a clever retort, but in the end leaving Snape to his feverish misery was exactly what he wanted to do, anyway.  Taking the empty glass from where the other man had left it on the armrest, Sirius shrugged and left the room.

=================================

After the events of that night, Grimmauld Place fell back into its usual routine.  Order members came and went between a series of biweekly meetings, the weather grew steadily colder, and Sirius continued to haunt the building, restless and alone.  There was no discussion of Severus and Remus’ failed mission; everyone seemed willing to count their losses and move on.  There was little else that they could do.

And anyway, they weren’t the only agents experiencing trouble in the field.  The approaching holidays brought with them a spat of unseasonably bad weather, which simultaneously wreaked havoc on the Order’s communication lines and on their morale.  Troubles with the ministry kept Alastor, Tonks, and Arthur away for long stretches of time, and when they did surface they were tired and irritable and prone to argument.  Resulting troubles in the Weasley family kept Molly on edge, straining a holiday cheer that become more and more forced every time she visited.  Even Remus’ visits became more scattered, his already strained relationship with Sirius fraying dangerously as the ex-convict’s drinking problem steadily worsened.

The only constant in that dreary place now was the stale smell of fear, and each member couldn’t help but feel that they were all walking a knife’s edge, holding their breath and waiting for the fall.

  
Snow had a way of deadening the silence around the house, leeching the last of its dulled colors and deepening its magically-enforced solitude.  Sirius increasingly began to feel, as one unremarkable day bled into the next, that he’d been buried alive in some sort of tomb, and at times the quiet was so stifling that he yanked the curtains away from the portraits just to fill the halls with his relatives’ shrieking.  Even the alcohol could no longer keep his nightmares at bay, and the resulting bout of insomnia transformed him into some sort of skeletal zombie, shuffling numbly from one empty room to the next with a bottle of liquor in his hand.

The days outside grew shorter; the shadows within grew longer.  The clock in the hall ran down, but no one bothered to wind it up again.

==========================

“You’re entirely wrong about that,” Sirius announced, refilling his glass of eggnog with a shaking hand.  “The key to becoming a good seeker is all about agility, not speed.  Elayne Sloane fell off her broom _twice_ in the last game; her team’s never going to get anywhere unless she learns how to handle a broom properly.”  He paused to take a sip of his drink.  “Your team has the exact same problem, you realize.  I don’t care how intimidating your beaters are, so long as your seeker’s a complete klutz you’ll never have a shot at the house cup.”

“… Who are you talking to?”

Sirius started in surprise, so violently he almost upset his drink, and turned from the empty chair he’d been facing towards the voice.   It was too dark to see the newcomer clearly, but he thought he recognized the stranger’s dark hair and lanky build.  “Regulus, I _told_ you to stay out of my room,” he snapped irritably.  “Get the hell out of here, before I knock your face in.”

After a moment’s consideration, Snape crossed his arms and braced his shoulder against the doorframe, opting to remain where he was.  “Who do you think is sitting in that chair, Black?” he asked quietly.

Upset at the interrogation, Sirius waved an arm at his companion, who … no longer seemed to be there.   _Wait._  That wasn’t right.  And whoever was talking to him certainly wasn’t Regulus.  He frowned, feeling suddenly disoriented and confused.  “Go away,” he muttered into his glass, because that seemed to be the easiest thing to do.

Snape flicked on the light instead, watching in amusement as Sirius recoiled in obvious pain.  “My, my, Black, you’ve really outdone yourself this time.  How much _have_ you had to drink?  Or, to put it more accurately: when was the last time you _weren’t_ drunk?”

“Snivellus,” Sirius identified finally, scowling.  “Shut up.  Just because you aren’t man enough to hold your liquor … go _away_.”

“Nothing would make me happier,” Snape agreed coolly, “but my contact has failed to arrive and I cannot wait around here any longer.  Such is the curse of needing to be in two places at once.”  He studied Sirius a moment before removing an envelope from his sleeve.  “As you are the only one here, I need _you_ to hold this until Arthur arrives.  But I also need you to demonstrate that you’re capable of actually carrying out the task before I give it to you.”

“Blow it out your ass,” Sirius growled, downing the remainder of his eggnog.  “I don’t give a damn about you or your damned message.”

“Pity,” Severus sniffed, “because you really _should_.  The message pertains to your godson, after all.”

Sirius looked up sharply, gritting his teeth against the resulting vertigo.  “Harry?  What’s wrong?  What’s happened to him?  What have you done to him?”  He shoved himself violently out of his chair and took a step towards Snape in a manner he probably thought was menacing.

Snape tapped the edge of the envelope against his palm.  “You know, for someone who spent twelve years in Azkaban under false charges, you are rather quick to throw around baseless accusations.”

“You actually expect _sympathy_ from me?  If it weren’t for you, Harry wouldn’t even be in danger!  James and Lily might still be alive!  And you expect me to trust you with my godson’s safety?”

“… So your memory _does_ still function, then.  How reassuring.”  There was absolutely no emotion in Snape’s voice.  “Let us try this: do you remember what it is I asked you to do a minute ago?”

“Why would I ever do you a favor?” Sirius asked derisively.  It was obvious he _didn’t_ remember.  Rolling his eyes, Snape made a brief, complicated gesture with his hand and muttered something under his breath.  His companion recoiled in response, stumbling backward until he all but fell into his seat.  “Did you just case a spell on me?” he asked incredulously.  “You sneaky, back-stabbing _git_!”

“Feel better?” Snape asked impassively, folding his arms again.  Sirius blinked, realizing with a jolt that his headache was gone – as were the other symptoms of his intoxication.  “Don’t act so surprised,” Severus instructed smugly, reading the confusion on Sirius’ face.  “You wouldn’t believe how many interrogations take place inside of bars.  Rest assured, the devastating amount of damage done to your liver and brain will remain.  But now that you’re finally sober, perhaps we can try this _again_.”  He held the envelope up once more.  “This message – which pertains to your insolent and useless godson – needs to find its way to Arthur Weasley.  I was supposed to meet him here this evening, but he has failed to show and I cannot delay here any longer than I already have.  Unlike you, some of us actually have work to do.  Thus I need you to hold on to this until Arthur arrives, and to remain sober enough to deliver it when the time comes.  Do you understand?”

“Yeah, fine, whatever.”  Sirius scrubbed a hand across his gaunt face, surprised at the beard which prickled roughly against his skin.  When was the last time he’d remembered to shave?  “… On one condition.  I know you use some sort of code to communicate with other members of the Order, so reading the message would be pointless for me; which means I need you to tell me what’s going on with Harry before I’ll agree to take it.”

“That may be the single most pointless bargain anyone has ever tried to sell me, Black.”  Though it was hard to believe, Snape looked vaguely amused.  “Are you honestly telling me that you will willingly jeopardize Potter’s safety if I don’t tell you what the message is?”

He had a point, but Sirius would be damned before he told him that.  “There can’t possibly be any reason _not_ to tell me,” he countered.  “As you say, I would never willingly risk Harry’s safety.  And it’s not like I could accidentally convey the message to anyone else.”  He gestured vaguely around the empty room.  “I’m entirely alone, here.”

“Glad you’re finally aware of that.  Now, as I believe I’ve mentioned – twice – I am late for another engagement.  Take the note and do as you’re told.”  He tossed the envelope at Sirius, who had little choice but to catch it.

“I really, truly hate you,” Sirius ground out, clenching the bit of paper tightly in his fist.

“The feeling’s mutual, I can assure you.”  Snape turned to go, but hesitated a moment in the doorway.  “… You know, I seem to recall that there was another message.  One that I was meant to deliver to _you_.  But you were so drunk the last time I was here that it seemed pointless to deliver it.”

“A message from who?” Sirius asked suspiciously, glaring up at Snape through narrowed eyes.

“Potter,” Snape responded simply.  “I don’t have it now; I locked it in my desk at the school once you proved … incapable … of handling it.  But perhaps, if you do as I’ve instructed you without messing up, I just might remember to bring it along with me next time.  Assuming you’re sober enough to read it, of course.”

“Snape, this is bullshit; you have _no right_ to keep that letter from me!”  Sirius lunged again from his chair, considerably more graceful than before, and grabbed a fistful of Severus’ robes.  “If Harry needs my help –“

“And what help, _exactly_ , do you expect to be when you can’t even see straight?” Severus challenged softly, calm in the face of his adversary’s fury.  “In this state, you’re an embarrassment to him and to yourself, not to mention the entire Order.  When is the last time you’ve done anything useful?  They don’t even bother to fetch you for meetings, now; or haven’t you noticed?”  Sirius’ grip loosened somewhat, though the thunder didn’t leave his eyes.  “Sober up, Black.  And while you’re at it, you might consider _bathing_ occasionally.”  The potion’s master wrinkled his nose in distaste.  “If you can manage this rather academic challenge, I’ll give you the letter.”

“And lose your bargaining chip?  Do you honestly expect me to believe that?”

“I give you my word.”  There was a sharp, warning note in Snape’s voice that hadn’t been there before.  “And before you question _that_ , you might try remembering the conversation we had right before your pet werewolf and I took our little field trip.  If you _can_ , that is.”

He couldn’t.  Which either meant that Snape had a point, or that he was lying to him again to get what he wanted.

Warily, Sirius released his hold on the smaller man, stepping back far enough for Snape to irritably straighten his robes.  “And when, exactly, can I look forward to your esteemed visit?” Sirius asked sarcastically.

“Oh, no; telling you would defeat the point entirely.  And I wouldn’t bother asking the others, either, were I you.  Not only would you have to explain _why_ you were asking in the first place, but they wouldn’t be able to answer regardless.  They aren’t told of my whereabouts until it’s strictly necessary.”  His smile was unapologetically smug.  “I suppose you’ll just have to exercise some sort of willpower, Black.  Assuming you have any left.”

“If you break your promise, Snivellus, I swear to you that _I’ll_ break every bone in your body.”

Snape merely shrugged.  “Whatever you need to tell yourself to get to sleep at night.  Now; I must be going.  Say hello to your little knitting circle here for me, once you see them again.”  Before Sirius could think of some sort of clever reply, Snape had ducked through the doorway, leaving him alone once more.

=========================

The following morning, Sirius gathered up all the remaining alcohol he could find in the house and resolutely poured it down the kitchen sink.  Then, after ordering Kreacher to clean up all the empty bottles and glasses scattered about the house, he coaxed enough hot water out of the clanking bathroom pipes for a shower and a shave.

It was hard to believe how long his hair had grown since his escape from Azkaban.  Remus had cut it for him after the incident with Pettigrew at Hogwarts, but that had been ages ago now; the dark locks hung, dull and bedraggled, almost to his shoulders again.  On impulse, he found a pair of scissors and began cutting away at the mess, willfully ignoring the shots of grey streaking his mane.   _I’m thirty-five years old_ , he thought bleakly to himself, but the haggard face staring back at him from behind the glass was much older than that.  He thought of Remus, likewise aged beyond his years, and a part of him was grateful that he’d never had to witness a similar transformation take place in James.

The haircut was choppy and inelegant, but it did the trick, and something about the amateur butcher job made him feel younger – or at least his own age – again.  It reminded him of the time he’d used a charm to streak his forelock bright red, just to torture his mother, and for a brief moment the memory made him smile.  “We thought we were invincible, then,” he told the old man in the mirror, running a finger along the homemade tattoo spattered unevenly against his collarbone.  “We thought we would live forever.  But that was so long ago … and we’re all dead, now.”   _Some of us went away, and some of became ghosts; but we’re all dead._

Cleaned up and dressed, Sirius wandered into the kitchen and made himself a sandwich out of whatever he could find.  Once he’d cleared away the remnants of his lunch, however, he was entirely at a loss as to what to do next.  There was a book left on the table, presumably by Remus – when was the last time his friend had stopped by?  Sirius was somewhat disconcerted to realize that he couldn’t actually remember – and he tried flipping through it.  But it was in French, and French was one of the many things he’d lost somewhere between here and Azkaban.

He found a newspaper lying on a table in the front entranceway, but it was outdated now by a few weeks.  And after so many months spent cutoff from the outside world, Sirius felt oddly skittish and uneasy about knowing what everyone else was up to.

He spent some time drifting from room to room, reminiscing over nick-knacks and pieces of furniture the way he had when he’d first returned here, but there was only so much to look at, only so many memories he could take.  By three o’clock in the afternoon he’d run out of options and was nearly desperate for a drink.

“Harry, Harry, Harry,” he muttered to himself as he moved towards the first-floor sitting room, using the name as some sort of talisman to keep his cravings at bay.  Clasping his shaking hands tightly behind his back, he took up vigil in front of the window again, training his weary eyes on the street and waiting for Arthur to arrive.

  
The second day was much worse.

After re-arranging the few scattered possessions he had half a dozen times, he made the bed in the tiny bedroom he now inhabited and then spent a fruitless hour searching the attic for some manner of Christmas decoration.  Christmas was a Muggle holiday, but such a tenacious one that it had managed to infiltrate the wizarding world long before anyone could think of a reason to prohibit it.  He and Regulus used to receive gifts in their stockings and undergo the same inane family traditions each year that everyone else did.  But try as he might, Sirius failed to unearth a single scrap of tinsel.  Kreacher was less than helpful, limiting himself to some unprintable epitaph about Muggle customs before shuffling out of arm’s reach.

After that, Sirius tried baking a cake in the kitchen, just to keep himself occupied; but by that point his hands were shaking so badly he could barely light the stove, and the pounding in his head had grown so intense that he couldn’t focus on the recipe.

Wracked with sudden chills, he wrapped himself in a musty-smelling blanket and did the only thing he could think to do: he went to sleep.

  
A week passed, every day the same as the one which preceded it.  At times, the craving for a drink was so strong that Sirius had to bite down on his own arm just to focus.  He felt sick, feverish and lightheaded and _angry_ ; at himself, at the world, but most of all, at Snape for torturing him like this.  Still, the thought that Harry needed him ultimately fortified him through the days, filling in the hollow spaces behind his ribs that boredom and depression had left behind.  As the seventh day crawled passed, Sirius began to believe that he was over the worst of it, and that thought brought him hope – the first hope he’d felt in a very long time.

But as the alcohol worked its way out of his system, something else slipped in to replace it: night terrors, so vivid and violent that they’d driven him to drink in the first place.  Sleep was his only defense against the withdrawal symptoms, but it was a vicious cycle.  Each time he slept, the threat of the dreams hovered just overhead.  He tried charming his alarm clock to wake him every fifteen minutes, reasoning that he could solve the problem by simply avoiding his R.E.M. cycles.  But there was only so long his body – starved and abused for entirely too long – could take it, and after that first week Sirius was thoroughly exhausted.

It was like accepting a death sentence: stretching out on his bed, hands folded on his chest, waiting for the night to pull the last threads of sunlight out the dusty window.  Knowing that when it did, the weariness would steal up on him, paralyzing his limbs, slowing his breathing, stripping him of all his defenses.  Leaving him naked and vulnerable to the machinations of a waiting executioner.  The alcohol had dulled the dreams somewhat, blurring their intensity and transforming them into vaguely unsettling nightmares that vanished with the dawn.  But he hadn’t even that defense left to him now.

On the eighth night after Severus’ visit, Sirius removed the charm from his alarm clock and, palms clammy with nervous anticipation, allowed himself to sink unhindered into sleep.

==============================

 _His blood roared in his ears as he ran, feet pounding the pavement with the sickening squelch of rubber soles on smoldering tarmac.  Even from this distance, he could hear the screaming; and like some sort of red string, the sound guided him – closer and closer – to its source._

 _He knew what was happening.  He knew he was going to be too late.  But still he ran, each step jolting his shinbones, each hot, ragged inhalation of smoky air searing his aching lungs._

 _The door to his apartment wasn’t locked – he knew it wasn’t, somehow – but he kicked it open anyway, wood splintering beneath his heel.  The Death Eaters were there, as he had known they would be.  They didn’t even bother to look up from their work, unconcerned over his intrusion.  They knelt in a small, tight ring around a body sprawled out on  his kitchen floor, intently focused on the task at hand.  The dark-haired figure lying on his back, so battered now that Sirius couldn’t tell for sure whether it was James or Harry, let out another terrible scream as the Death Eaters began peeling the skin away from his right arm.  They worked with careful precision, neatly separating his hide from his muscles the way a skilled hunter would tan an animal, rolling away the flaps of skin to keep the hide perfectly intact.  They had already finished removing the skin from his left arm, the limb now a red, pulpy mass of veined muscles; the floor tiles were bathed in an ocean of blood that spread out away from the body and bled upward into the hems of their wizarding robes.  Harry – James? – would faint now and then from the pain, but only for a moment; and when he awoke once more his agonized screams would shatter the air around them._

 _“Stop!” Sirius implored them, hands clamped tightly over his ears, though that did no good.  But they ignored him, and he did nothing –_ could _do nothing – to impede their progress.  As their bloodied fingers began to peel the skin away from their victim’s torso, Sirius doubled-over and vomited onto the gore-spattered floor.  “Please,” he whimpered, unable to bear the sight but unable to look away.  “Stop this!_ Please!”

 _“Langlock!”_

 _Sirius felt his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth, cutting off his pleading, and his hands flew to either side of his face.  Desperate and confused, he clawed at his cheeks with his nails, shaking his head violently from side to side, as though he were an animal trying to free itself of some sort of muzzle._

 _“Will you stop that?!  Black, wake up!_ Wake up!”

The stinging slap delivered to his cheek was a different sort of pain all together, blurring the gruesome scene on the kitchen floor into the familiar image of his darkened bedroom.  Snarling in fear, still unable to speak, Sirius swung wildly at his assailant even as he tried to flatten himself out-of-reach against the back wall.

“Don’t make me hex you, you moron,” a familiar face snapped from the shadows, and long, cold fingers caught at his wrist, bending his arm back with more force than he ever would have given them credit for.  “Black, you’re _dreaming_ ; snap out of it!  I cast a jinx on you to keep you from waking the entire bloody neighborhood.  I’ll remove it if you’ll just _calm down._ ”

Snape.  It was Snape who held his arm.  He was in Grimmauld Place, not his apartment in London; Harry was at school, and James was …

Swallowing hard against the force of his locked tongue, Sirius nodded to show Snape that he understood.  The other wizard released his wrist, muttering the counter-curse that enabled him to speak again.  “You really _are_ insane,” he muttered then, taking a step back away from the bed.  “I could hear you screaming from a block away.  I thought the Dark Lord’s henchmen had broken in here and were slowly torturing you to death.”

“Not me,” Sirius murmured hoarsely, drawing up his knees and bracing his forehead against them as he struggled to regain control of his breathing.  “They were torturing James … or Harry, I couldn’t tell which.  They were … skinning him.  While he was still alive.”

“In the dream,” Snape reminded him pointedly, hesitating a moment before settling stiffly at the bottom of the bed, as far away from Sirius as he could.  “And that’s a rather … inventive method of torture, even for them.  Not that I recommend suggesting it to them.  They’d probably enjoy it.”

“And you were one of them, once,” Sirius muttered wearily, his voice muffled against the fabric of his pajama pants.

“No.  I was a follower of the Dark Lord.  I was never one of _them._ ”  His tone was oddly clipped and cold.

They were silent for a long moment after, both unmoving in the dark.  Sirius could feel his sweat cooling in the chill of the night air, and it made him shudder.  He waited until his heart rate had returned to normal before he finally lifted his head from his knees, letting it fall back against the wall with a dull thud.  “What if you had been right?” he asked suddenly, his voice strained and tired.  “If you’d burst in, and found them torturing me?”

“I would have watched.”  Severus shrugged, the motion barely perceptible in the night.  “You’re not worth blowing my cover over, Black, whatever you might think.”

“You wouldn’t have participated?”

“… No.  I don’t condone senseless brutality.  And I never have.”

“Even if ordered to?”

Snape thought about that for a moment, then shrugged again.  “I assume this means you’ve managed to stay sober,” was all he said.

“Yeah.  I have.  Though honestly, these dreams are what started me drinking in the first place.”

Severus sniffed.  “There are other, less destructive methods of dealing with nightmares, Black.”

“Not nightmares like these.”

“Yes, even nightmares like these.”  He sounded impatient again, as though he were stating the obvious, but Sirius didn’t rise to the bait.

“How do you know?”

Severus made an irritated sound low in his throat, rising from the bed in one swift, fluid movement.  “I came here to deliver a report, and now I must be on my way.  I don’t have time to sit around and answer your idiotic questions.  If you’re done terrorizing the neighborhood with your squawking …?”

“Who do you dream about, Severus?” Sirius asked softly, and it was the first time either could remember him using Snape’s given name.  “Who do they butcher before your eyes?”

“Yet _another_ idiotic question,” Snape muttered, but his tone was different this time.

Sirius hesitated, trying and failing to catch Severus’ eye in the dark.  “… They took so many things from me; the dementors, I mean.  I can’t remember what colors the flowers were in her wedding bouquet.  I don’t know why that matters, but somehow, it does.  I was there; I saw them.  She even put one in the buttonhole of my jacket during the reception.  She saved one to press inside a scrapbook for her children.  But I can’t remember what color they were.”

“Yellow,” Snape muttered impulsively, though he seemed shocked at himself for doing it.  “… I would assume.  Yellow was her favorite color.”  He turned to go.

Sirius laughed once at that; such a strange, broken sound.  “You’re probably right.  Yellow.  I never knew that was her favorite color.”

Severus paused briefly in the doorway, stuffing his hand into his sleeve and withdrawing another square of paper.  The pale color of the parchment shone brightly in the dark.  “Potter’s letter,” he explained gruffly.  “I told you; I keep my word.”  Sirius held out a hand for it, and though Snape seemed reluctant to return to his bedside, eventually he did.

“What did you tell me the night before your assignment?” Sirius asked as he took the folded parchment, tracing the outline of the paper in the dark.  “You’re right; I can’t remember.”

“You made me promise to look after your lap-dog,” Snape said shortly.

“And you did.”

“Yes.”

Sirius considered that, thinking of Remus in his threadbare sweater; thinking of how lovely Lily had looked on her wedding day.  And then he grabbed the front of Snape’s robe again and pulled him down for a kiss.  The other wizard responded as though he’d been expecting it, gripping Sirius’ shoulder tightly as he thrust his tongue inside Sirius’ mouth, pressing him back against the wall again.  It was impulsive, long and sharp and violent, and when they parted they were both dizzy and short of breath.  But there was no awkwardness.  It hadn’t been about desire.  They had never liked each other, and they still didn’t.  But here in the night they _understood_ one another: two lost, lonely souls, brushing briefly as they passed in the dark, locked for one moment in shared mourning over just how much each of them had lost.

“You’re right,” Sirius murmured when Snape pulled away, the ghost of a smile toying about the edge of his bruised lips.  

“Her flowers.  They _were_ yellow.”

====================

After Snape had gone, Sirius pulled the rusting chain on the room’s only light and huddled within its small, sickly yellow circle, anxiously skimming Harry’s letter.  His godson spoke of school and a series of troubling dreams, of a minor argument he’d had with Ron and a major fight he’d gotten into with Lucius Malfoy’s son.  Nothing life-threatening, in the end; just the ramblings of a lonely boy worried about his future and tired of being kept in the dark.

 

Sirius smiled to himself, the hollowness in his chest filling with a sense of pride and camaraderie.  Harry was lonely, but he wasn’t _alone_ ; just like his godfather.

 

The untidy scrawl of Harry’s handwriting was vaguely familiar as well.  Sirius pressed the pad of his thumb against a smudge of blue ink, as though he could feel his way through the choppy loops and curls of his godson’s writing.  The letters were faint in some places where the quill hadn’t had enough ink; darkly bold in others, where Harry had forgotten to blot the paper.  So impatient; so _young_.  Always so restless and moving.  _Exactly like James._

 

Sirius closed his eyes briefly, and something about the shape of the words and the scent of the parchment reminded him of another time.  He could recall the way the sun-scorched wood of the Potter’s picnic table had felt against the skin of his bare arms, how the distant hum of a neighbor’s lawn mower had forced them to bow their heads together over the piece of parchment.  He and James had been arguing over the semantics of the final spell while Remus finished the lettering, and Peter was tracing patterns in the condensation of his lemonade glass.  He recalled how proud they all were when the map was finished, how their laughter had brought Mrs. Potter around the side of the house to investigate.  He had told some charming and outrageous lie to divert her attention while Peter shoved the paper into his pants, and they’d all clapped him on the back in congratulations afterward; a childhood hero.

 

Of course, it was only a memory.  When he opened his eyes, it was to a world cold and still; a world where James was dead and Peter was a traitor and there were no heroes anymore.  But still, the memory was there.  He’d forgotten it until now, but it was _there_ , waiting patiently in a corner of his mind.  The dementors hadn’t stripped him of everything, after all.

 

He traced the outline of Harry’s signature absently, picturing the boy in his mind.  _You’re going to be alright, Harry,_ he thought quietly.

 

 _We’re both going to be alright._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> I'm currently accepting commissions; see my [gig page](http://fiverr.com/users/o2doko/gigs/write-an-original-5000-word-story-in-any-genre) for more information.


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